The Belgian armed forces are aiming to attract a record 2,300 people to their ranks in 2021, some 300 more than those joining this year, it announced on 24 September. The army wants to recruit 1,250 soldiers and sailors, 800 non-commissioned ‘sub’-officers and 250 officers to compensate for the...

Three young migrants from Sudan trying to reach the UK on an inflatable boat in the North Sea have been rescued, West Flanders Prosecution Office (Bruges section) announced on 23 September. The makeshift vessel, spotted 25km from Ostend, was recovered by a search party made up of Belgian Navy and...

From 5 October, no one will be allowed to drink alcohol in the majority of Brussels city-centre public spaces, announced Brussels mayor Philippe Close (PS) “with a heavy heart” on 25 September. The measure, to be laid down in a police directive, will last a full year, until 5 October 2021. This new...

Close friends Simon Gronowski and Koenraad Tinel, two Belgians with remarkable and contrasting war histories, have received honorary doctorates in Humanism at the official opening of the 2020-2021 academic year at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) and Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB)...

Officially launched on the final day of Belgium’s Mobility Week (16-22 September), Handycab is a phone application aiming to identify all taxis in the Brussels-Capital region suitable for reduced mobility passengers and to make it easier to reserve them. The application, that has been welcomed by...

Some 1,000 stolen objects, including a large number of telephones, were retrieved on 13 and 17 September by Brussels-North police zone in two separate operations. The raids were carried out as part of an existing dossier opened in 2019 for pickpocketing in the Brussels-North area (Schaerbeek, Evere...

Democrats Abroad Belgium hosted a virtual polling place this week to help Americans in Belgium fill out and send in their absentee ballots. European chapters of Democrats Abroad have been helping Americans to get their ballots and vote through virtual voter information sessions since July. “We have...

A must-see of the autumn arts season is an exhibition shared between Brussels and Ghent. Danser brut , staged across Bozar and the Dr Guislain Museum of psychiatry sheds light on the connections between dance and involuntary or repetitive movements. Through the use of outsider, modern and...

Anyone who has a ticket to a summer music festival in Belgium that got cancelled may use it for the same festival in 2021 or in 2022. That applies to all festivals and has been decided by a consortium of festivals in consultation with Ticketmaster and federal minister for consumer affairs Nathalie...

The best of the Belgian capital’s Art Nouveau and Art Deco addresses are opening their doors to the public for the next two weekends: 26-27 September and 3-4 October. Examples of these distinctive artistic movements that flourished from the 1890s to the mid-20th century – with Art Nouveau all...